Tom Toles: $4 Gas ... Outrageous!

Former GOP Senator Says Cheney's Hostile Takeover Was Planned From The Beginning

Just in case you're still under the impression that the single-minded belligerence shown by the Bush administration after 9/11 was a reaction (or an over-reaction) to the attacks of that day, I wish to remind you that Bush and Cheney were busy classifying government documents and scuttling international treaties all during the summer of 2001 -- almost as if they were getting ready for something dramatic.

If it was a reaction (or an over-reaction), it was a reaction not to 9/11 but to the successful theft of the 2000 presidential "election".

For some very convincing evidence of that, we turn to a former Republican Senator, Lincoln Chafee [photo]. The following is an excerpt from Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President, as published by NPR and brought to my attention by Larisa Alexandrovna:

Early in December 2000, Senator [Arlen] Specter asked Richard Cheney, our Republican vice presidential candidate, to have lunch with us on Wednesday, December 13. The vote-counting fiasco in Florida was under way and no one knew whether Texas Governor George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore had been elected the nation's 43rd president. Then, the night before we were to meet with Mr. Cheney, the news broke: the U.S. Supreme Court had declared the Florida recount unconstitutional. The Court authorized Katharine Harris, Florida's Republican secretary of state, to declare Bush and Cheney victorious.

We Republicans had won the presidency by a single vote in the Electoral College and a single vote in the Supreme Court. In the executive branch, winning by a whisker is as good as winning in a landslide, but not so in the Senate. For the first time in a century we had a Senate split down the middle, 50-50, with a Republican vice president available to break a tie in our favor. That whisker-thin margin of victory had real consequences to my way of thinking.

It meant that our small club of five moderate Republican votes would be vital to President-elect Bush if he had any hope of getting his legislative initiatives through.

That was why Vice President-elect Richard Cheney came to our lunch that day: Not to say he needed us, but to tell us that he and George W. Bush were in charge and no one else.

In steady, quiet tones, the Vice President-elect laid out a shockingly divisive political agenda for the new Bush administration, glossing over nearly every pledge the Republican ticket had made to the American voter. President-elect Bush had promised that healing, but now we moderate Republicans were hearing Richard Cheney articulate the real agenda: A clashist approach on every issue, big and small, and any attempt at consensus would be a sign of weakness. We would seek confrontation on every front. He said nothing about education or the environment or health care; it was all about these new issues that were rarely, if ever, touted in the campaign. The new administration would divide Americans into red and blue, and divide nations into those who stand with us or against us. I knew that what the Vice President-elect was saying would rip the closely divided Congress apart. We moderates had often voted with President Clinton on things that powerful Republican constituencies didn't like: an increase in the minimum wage, a patients' bill of rights, and campaign finance reform. Mr. Cheney knew this, but he ticked off the issues at the top of his agenda and did it fearlessly. It made no difference to him that we were potential adversaries; he was going down his to-do list and checking off Confrontation Number 1.

Senator Arlen Specter spoke first. As the most junior member, I would have my say last, if at all. I could hardly sit still as I waited to hear my respected friend wade into this outrageous manifesto.

And then, in a moment I can only describe as infuriating, Senator Specter took no leadership role in representing the moderate point of view. He acquiesced, and others followed his example.

It's a shame Lincoln Chafee didn't know much about Arlen Specter; otherwise he wouldn't have been infuriated -- not even disappointed!

As each of my colleagues spoke in turn, I waited for one of them to push back. Surely one of them would have the presence of mind to say, Whoa! Time out! What are you talking about, Mister Vice President? You weren't elected to scrap international agreements. You never said to the voters: Elect us and we promise to bring back deficit spending and drive the next generation into debt.

But no one resisted. We sat there and listened as Mr. Cheney made divisive pronouncements of policy that would come as a complete surprise to many of the Americans who had voted to elect the Bush/Cheney ticket. I stopped waiting for someone to challenge Mr. Cheney when I saw my Republican friends around the table nodding in agreement as he held forth.

I was at a loss to explain my colleagues' compliant behavior then. I remain so now. It may have been an all-too-human response to the circumstances of the time. Anxious weeks of uncertainty were finally over. Now we knew the outcome of the election. The bitterness of the Florida recount was behind us. My colleagues seemed happy and relieved just to know who was in charge. And they seemed a little awestruck. This is the Vice President of the United States.

The contentious and destructive agenda that Mr. Cheney dropped on us was troubling enough, but what really unnerved me was his attitude. He welcomed conflict. We Republicans had promised America exactly the opposite. In the presidential debates, moderator Jim Lehrer asked Governor Bush to describe the foreign policy he would adopt, if elected. Candidate Bush said he would be humble in foreign affairs; that if we were arrogant, other countries would resent us. Now his running mate was telling us the new administration would make a point of being arrogant and divisive. Mr. Cheney was brazen in his pronouncements. A humble foreign policy? His attitude was anything but humble. He said that the campaign was over and that our actions in office would not be dictated by what had to be said in the campaign. And he pronounced this deception with no emotion or window dressing of any kind. He was fearless, matter of fact, and smug.

I wondered, where does Cheney get the confidence to say these things a few hours after the Court established him as our Vice President-elect? Where did he get the authority to make this radical departure from the President-elect's own campaign rhetoric?

I had supported Governor George W. Bush over Senator John McCain in the 2000 Rhode Island presidential primary. I met the Texas Governor for the first time in 1999, when he came to Rhode Island to raise money. I contributed and sincerely applauded his remarks to supporters at the Providence Convention Center. He had good campaign patter, and I was impressed. He said all the right things. I thought he could win on his pledge to bring a new, unifying atmosphere to Washington, and that he might even be as good and decent a president as his father had been. He seemed moderate enough to win support from all sides, and he had the Bush name. After the bitter partisan atmosphere of the Clinton impeachment, voters looked back with affection at the governor's father.

I liked that the governor had worked cooperatively with Democrats in the Texas Legislature. If leaders in both parties could rally around him, he was just what the country needed. America stood at the summit of power, emerging from the Cold War as an economic, cultural and military force without equal. We had wasted valuable years in partisan bickering, but our moment in history was still at hand. What a tremendous opportunity and responsibility to do good things in the world.

Wow. I guess Republicans have to justify their manner of "thinking" somehow -- but still it makes me wonder whether Lincoln Chafee can spell "snow job".

Then came that devastating first day after George W. Bush and Richard Cheney prevailed in the Supreme Court. If we were to believe Mr. Cheney, the President-elect would not only reignite the partisanship of the Clinton-Gingrich era but would make it even more toxic. Mr. Cheney tore our best campaign promises to shreds and the moderates acquiesced instead of pelting him with outrage. It was clear to me then that there would be no key bloc of moderate votes helping to shape legislation and reunite America over the next four years. In any event, Cheney was not asking for support – he was ordering us to provide it. The President-elect had his agenda; we were just along for the ride.

My heart sank as my colleagues peeled away, one by one. It was the most demoralizing moment of my seven-year tenure in the Senate.

When it was my turn to speak, I made the case that our five votes would be crucially important in a 50-50 Senate. I chose my words carefully, and probably stammered with the effort to contain my fury. We were on the cusp of a new millennium that held enormous promise for American leadership in the world, and what I had just heard was petty, arrogant and irresponsible. It threatened to lead in exactly the wrong direction.

I spoke in the perhaps too-optimistic hope that I might yet rally the moderates to seriously apprehend the implications of the new agenda. When I told Mr. Cheney, "Our votes at this table are important," he could hardly be bothered. He gave me the back of his hand with a truism: "Every vote is important."

There was no support to be had, and lunch was over.

There's more here from NPR; and more here from Amazon dot com; and more here from Larisa Alexandrovna at At-Largely, who asked:

What aggressive foreign policy was Cheney talking about and how would it be achieved? Had he and Bush been planning for the Iraq war no matter what happened, that is to say, even if 9/11 did not happen they were planning on war with Iraq?

Her question drew a comment from Kevin Holsinger, the gist of which follows:

CBS: Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq?
O'Neill Tells '60 Minutes' Iraq Was 'Topic A' 8 Months Before 9-11

And what happened at President Bush's very first National Security Council meeting is one of O'Neill's most startling revelations. “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.

Washington Post: Tenet Details Efforts to Justify Invading Iraq
Former CIA Director Says White House Focused on the Idea Long Before 9/11

White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George J. Tenet.

CNN: Bush administration rejects Clarke charges

In a meeting on September 12, 2001, "The president, in a very intimidating way, left us, me and my staff, with the clear indication that he wanted us to come back with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11 because they had been planning to do something about Iraq from before the time they came into office," Clarke said.

Chafee's excerpt reminds me of Cheney's reaction to his other Great Enabling Moment, as reported in the Washington Post:

In a bunker beneath the East Wing of the White House, Cheney locked his eyes on CNN, chin resting on interlaced fingers. He was about to watch, in real time, as thousands were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Previous accounts have described Cheney's adrenaline-charged evacuation to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center that morning, a Secret Service agent on each arm. They have not detailed his reaction, 22 minutes later, when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

"There was a groan in the room that I won't forget, ever," one witness said. "It seemed like one groan from everyone" -- among them Rice; her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley; economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey; counselor Matalin; Cheney's chief of staff, Libby; and the vice president's wife.

Cheney made no sound. "I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed," said the witness, reading from a notebook of observations written that day. Cheney closed his eyes against the image for one long, slow blink.

Three people who were present, not all of them admirers, said they saw no sign then or later of the profound psychological transformation that has often been imputed to Cheney. What they saw, they said, was extraordinary self-containment and a rapid shift of focus to the machinery of power.

Extraordinary is right!

He didn't even bother to feign surprise.

How quaint.

Engineer Arrested, Accused Of Spying For Israel

Have you heard about the American accused of giving nuclear secrets to Israel?

Randall Mikkelsen of Reuters has:

U.S. authorities arrested an American engineer on Tuesday on suspicion of giving secrets on nuclear weapons, fighter jets and air defense missiles to Israel during the 1980s, the Justice Department said.

Ben-Ami Kadish acknowledged his spying in FBI interviews and said he acted out of a belief that he was helping Israel, court papers said. He was accused of reporting to the same Israeli government handler as Jonathan Jay Pollard, who is serving a life term on a 1985 charge of spying for Israel.
...

Kadish was arrested in New Jersey and was scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon at U.S. District Court in Manhattan, authorities said.
...

Kadish is a Connecticut-born U.S. citizen who worked as a mechanical engineer at the U.S. Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey.

His spying for Israel lasted roughly from 1979 to 1985, and his contact with the unidentified Israeli handler continued until March of this year, the federal complaint against him said.

The complaint said Kadish did not appear to receive any money in exchange for his suspected spying, just small gifts and restaurant meals.

Nice. Small gifts and restaurant meals. Secrets about nuclear weapons, fighter jets and air defense missiles. How cheaply these traitors work!

But it's not about the compensation, of course. It's about loyalty ... to what?

"Ben-Ami Kadish ... said he acted out of a belief that he was helping Israel."

Kadish, who had a security clearance, took 50-100 classified documents from the arsenal's library, working from a list provided by the handler identified in a federal complaint as "CC-1." The handler would then photograph the documents and Kadish returned them to the library, the complaint said.

It said one of the classified documents passed on by Kadish "contained information concerning nuclear weaponry." Another related to "a major weapons system ... a modified version of an F-15 fighter jet that the United States had sold to another foreign country." It did not identify the country.

A third document contained information regarding the U.S. Patriot missile air defense system.

The complaint said Kadish maintained contact with CC-1, met him in Israel in 2004, and telephone [sic] with him on March 20 of this year, after his first FBI interview. It said the handler told him to lie to U.S. authorities: "Don't say anything ... What happened 25 years ago? You don't remember anything," the handler was quoted as saying.

Pretty soon this story will disappear, like they always do.

Pretty soon nobody will remember anything.

Tom Toles: Steadfast Digging

Nobody knows how deep the hole will get before the sides cave in.

Are we there yet? Not quite.

What? A Politically Motivated Suicide In Texas?

Here's another one for all you coincidence theorists -- a politically motivated suicide dressed up to look like murder. And in Texas, no less! Can you imagine??

The deceased was the unfortunate Riad Hamad, a middle-school teacher and a "pro-Palestinian activist". Of course, it's bad luck to be a "pro-Palestinian activist" during these very pro-Israeli times.

The cause of Hamad's death is most instructive: the unlucky victim apparently wrapped his head in duct tape, tied his arms together, and threw himself into a lake.

Austin police say the manner of death is consistent with suicide, and who can argue with them?

After all, they presumably have as much duct tape as they could ever need.

For more details, start with Marc Parent: "Sometimes your friends end up duct-taped and suicided".

See also, from the cold archives, "The Coincidence Theorist's Guide To Political Assassination".

Big News! Military Analysts On TV May Not Be Impartial!

Big news! The retired pro-military men who show up on TV all the time telling pro-military lies may be getting their pro-military talking points from the Pentagon! Who would have guessed?

Big news! Many of them are making money off the war, and/or working for military contractors! How astonishing!

Big news! Anyone who doesn't push the approved message doesn't get invited back! Can you believe it?

Big news! There's a huge piece about all this at the New York Times, "Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand," written by David Barstow, who won't be on TV anytime soon.

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance [...]

I don't understand what Barstow means by "appearance of objectivity". To me, there's nothing "objective" about a military man in uniform on commercial television. "Retired" or not, it always looks like "PROPAGANDA!!"

And of course it is, as Barstow details in many ways, none of them astonishing in the slightest.

Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon’s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated.

Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Who could have known?

Sudden Death In Gaza: Report Says Israeli Tank Fired On Journalists And Onlookers, Not Militants

Reuters: Probe sought of whether Israel targeted media crew

A leading human rights group called on Friday for an independent investigation into the death of a Reuters cameraman and other civilians in Gaza this week, saying Israeli forces may have targeted the media.

Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana, a 23-year-old Palestinian, was killed in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday while covering events in the enclave for the international news agency. He had been filming an Israeli tank dug in about 1,000 yards away.

A Palestinian mourner carried Shana's bloody flak jacket during Thursday's funeral. [Reuters photo]

"Human Rights Watch's investigations at the site found evidence suggesting that an Israeli tank crew fired recklessly or deliberately at the journalist's team," the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

Local doctors said on Thursday that tiny darts sprayed from a controversial missile used by Israel killed Shana [...] The last few seconds of video shot on Shana's tripod-mounted camera show the tank firing, then a midair explosion consistent with the burst of a missile.

Three other people were also killed by the "controversial missile" and at least one other person was wounded.

Human Rights Watch quoted the Palestinian Center for Human Rights as saying three bystanders were killed as they watched Shana filming. It identified them as Ahmed 'Aaref Farajallah, 14, Ghassan Khaled Abu 'Otaiwi, 17, and Khalil Isma'il Dughmosh, 22. [...] Shana's soundman, Wafa Abu Mizyed, was wounded in the arm [...]

What exactly were the Israelis shooting at?

"Israeli soldiers did not make sure they were aiming at a military target before firing, and there is evidence suggesting they actually targeted the journalists," said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

"Israel should investigate these deaths and, if crimes were committed, hold to account those responsible."

Don't hold your breath.

Human Rights Watch said interviews with an eyewitness to the shelling, a resident in a nearby village and a journalist who arrived just after the attack, as well as camera footage taken by Shana, indicated there was no military activity by Palestinian militants at the scene of the attack.

Big surprise. Great big surprise. And now for the obligatory denials, crocodile tears, and empty promises.

An Israeli military spokeswoman has said she could not confirm a tank fired at the cameraman and could not comment on weaponry it might have used. She added that the army, which has expressed regret, hoped to cooperate with Reuters to study the incident.

What else? Got context?

Troops killed 17 Palestinians, including several civilians, on Wednesday after three Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes in the Hamas Islamist-controlled enclave.

Cute.

Did you ever notice?

Israeli soldiers are always on the defensive, even in foreign countries. Large numbers of Palestinian civilians are always killed "after" or "in retaliation for" the deaths of a few Israeli soldiers. And Israeli troops never enforce a brutal occupation; they're just always getting involved in "clashes" in areas controlled by nasty Islamists.

It's almost as if they think we're stupid.

But then again, maybe we actually are!

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Build Walls Around 'Em: Sadr City Becomes A Prison

From Michael Gordon, who works for the New York Times and the Pentagon, not necessarily in that order:

U.S. Begins Erecting Wall in Sadr City

American forces have begun to build a massive concrete wall that will partition Sadr City, the densely populated Shiite neighborhood in the Iraqi capital.

The construction [...] began Tuesday night [...] On Wednesday night, huge cranes slowly lifted heavy concrete blocks into place under a moonless sky. The barriers were implanted on Al Quds Street, a major thoroughfare that separates the Tharwa and Jamilla districts to the south from the heart of Sadr City to the north.

The avenue was quiet except for the whirring sound of the cranes and thud of the barriers as they touched the ground. Contractors operated the cranes, but American soldiers transported the barriers on trucks and directed their placement.

The team building the barrier was protected by M-1 tanks, Stryker vehicles [photo] and Apache attack helicopters. As the workers labored in silence, there was a burst of fire as an M-1 tank blasted its main gun at a small group of fighters to the west. An Apache helicopter fired a Hellfire missile at a militia team equipped with rocket-propelled grenades, again interrupting the night with a thunderous boom. A cloud of dark smoke was visible in the distance through the Stryker’s night-vision system. [...]

With a sandstorm hampering reconnaissance drones and grounding helicopters, work on the barrier was suspended Thursday, but the military intends to resume work as the weather improves.

The swirling dust storm, which turned the sky into a gritty beige, proved to be a boon to the militias. Calculating that they would ground the Americans helicopters and interfere with the reconnaissance drones, militias assaulted the northernmost Iraqi Army positions.

Iraqi troops, who are manning strongholds hundreds of yards ahead of the American positions, reported that they had run desperately low on ammunition, according to tactical radio reports.

American commanders were eager to avoid a repeat of the setback Tuesday evening when one Iraqi company abandoned its position to the front of American forces. That area was reclaimed the next day by a different Iraqi unit, but the episode gave militias temporary control of a critical stretch of road and a fresh opportunity to plant roadside bombs.

And so on.

It looks like we might have to build concrete walls around every Iraqi city -- maybe even around every individual Iraqi -- in order to re-establish Iraq as a peaceful democratic state favorable to Western interests.

But when we do that, and when the rest of the world sees our glorious reconstruction of this wonderful ancient culture, they will hail us as liberators everywhere we go, and greet us with open spigots!

Tom Toles: Sounds Like A Good Plan To Me ...

Liquid Bombers On Trial: Jury Sees Martyrdom Videos, Crown Identifies Targets

The trial of the so-called "Liquid Bombers" has begun in London. As you may recall, twenty-five people were arrested in August of 2006 in connection with an alleged plot to assemble and detonate bombs on board transatlantic airliners, killing hundreds or thousands or "hundreds of thousands" of people.

Of the twenty-five who were arrested, fourteen were released without charges; the remaining eleven are now on trial. Eight of them are charged with conspiracy to murder, three with lesser offenses. The trial is expected to last six to eight months.

Six of the eight charged with conspiracy to murder made martyrdom videos, excerpts of which were shown to the jury last week. Everyone says these martyrdom videos are "chilling", but nobody says why. And the actual contents are reported almost nowhere.

The fullest excerpts available were reported by The Scotsman and are reproduced here along with photos courtesy of The Telegraph:

Abdulla Ahmed Ali

Ali is pegged as one of the ringleaders.

YOU show more care and concern for animals than you do for the Muslim ummah [the Islamic nation]…

Thanks to God I swear by Allah, I have the desire since the age of 15/16 to participate in jihad in the path of Allah.

I had the desire since then to punish the kuffar [non-believers] for the evil they are doing.

I had the desire since then for jannah [paradise] for the Koran. I want to go to my prophet and his companions.

Leave us alone. Stop meddling in our affairs and we will leave you alone.

Otherwise expect floods of martyr operations against you and we will take our revenge and anger, ripping amongst your people and scattering the people and your body parts and your people's body parts responsible for these wars and oppression decorating the streets.

Ibrahim Savant

ALL Muslims take heed – remove yourself from the grasp of the kuffar [non-believer] before you are counted as one of them.

Do not be content with your council houses and businesses and western lifestyle…

All Muslims feel the need to dust your feet in the training camps of jihad where men are made.

Cease debate and enter the battlefields seeking paradise. Mujahideen, for years I've desired to meet you, to walk the paths you've walked, to sacrifice what you have sacrificed. Now Allah has honoured me with an invitation to his kingdom.

Obviously after this beautiful operation they will accuse us brothers of all sorts of things and most of the things they will accuse us of is killing for the sake of killing, hating freedom, hating the west, being fed up with our lives.

Arafat Waheed Khan

WE WILL rain upon you such a terror and destruction that you will never feel peace and security. There will be floods of martyrdom operations and bombs falling through your lands. There will be daily torment in this world and a greater torment awaiting in the hereafter. Now I'd like to address the bootlickers who stand shoulder to shoulder with Kuffar in condemning these beautiful operations and the Mujahedeen.

In particular, I'd like to address the scholars to whom Allah has given knowledge which they concealed and play with to please the Kuffar, to save themselves from their disapproval.

What a miserable deal. Pleasing the Kuffar all while just pleasing Allah. Fearing them instead of fearing Allah.

I would like to thank Allah for giving me this opportunity to bless me with this Shahada [martyrdom]. I ask Allah to forgive me for all my sins, to accept me as a martyr. I ask Allah to help the Mujahedeen everywhere in every way.

Umar Islam

THIS is revenge for the actions of the USA in the Muslim lands and their accomplices such as the British and the Jews.

This is a warning to the non-believers that if they do not leave our lands there are many more like us and many more like me ready to strike until the law of Allah is established on this earth.

Know that without doubt your dead are in the hellfire whilst the Muslims who died due to your attacks will be in paradise …

You are just sitting there, you are still funding the Army, you have not put down your leader, you have not pressured them enough.

Most of them are too busy watching Home And Away and EastEnders, complaining about the World Cup, drinking your alcohol, to care about anything.

That is all you seem to care about – and I know because I have come from that.

Waheed Zaman

I HAVE been educated to a high standard and, had it not been Allah had blessed me with this mission, I could have lived a life of ease; but instead chose to fight for the sake of Allah's Deen [his religion or way].

All of you so-called moderate Muslims, there's only one way to solve this crisis. The problems will not be solved by campaigning, big conferences, peaceful negotiations with the disbelievers.

The only solution to this current situation of the Muslims is by fighting Jihad for the sake of Allah until the enemy is fully subdued and expelled from our lands.

America and England have no cause for complaint for they are the ones who invaded and built bases in the land of the Muslims.

I have not been brainwashed.

I have been educated to a high standard. I am old enough to make my own decisions.

Tanvir Hussain

PEOPLE keep on saying, you know, that we keep on targeting innocent civilians, yeah.

We're not targeting innocent civilians. We're targeting economic and military targets.

They're the battle grounds of today, so whoever steps in these trenches, they, yeah, you haven't got us to blame.

You've got to blame yourself and collateral damage is going to be inevitable and people are going to die besides, you know, it's work at a price.

You know, I wanted to do this myself. For many years, you know, I dreamt of doing this, but I didn't have no chance of doing this. I didn't have any means.

Thank God Allah has accepted my duas [prayers], and provided a means to do this. You know, I only wish I could do this again, you know come back and do this again, and just do it again and again until people come to their senses and realise, you know, don't mess with the Muslims.

Two of those charged with conspiracy to murder did not make martyrdom videos.

Both are considered -- along with Abdulla Ahmed Ali -- the "ringleaders".

Assad Sarwar

Assad Sarwar didn't make a martyrdom video himself, according to the prosecution, because he didn't intend to die. He was allegedly getting ready to send seven martyrs and thousands of infidels to their deaths, but Sarwar wasn't ready for martyrdom yet. He had further plans.

The Scotsman again:

Prosecutor Peter Wright QC said one key figure obtained detailed information about other possible targets.

He said Assad Sarwar was too important to give up his life in the wave of mid-air suicide attacks.

Mr Wright said: "The horizon in respect of Mr Sarwar's terrorist ambition was, we say, limitless."

In addition to the alleged plot against transatlantic airliners, there were allegedly also other targets, as AFP reported:

Wright said a computer memory stick found at Sarwar's home suggested the gang had assessed other targets, including London's Canary Wharf tower -- the tallest in Britain -- a gas pipeline and a number of power stations.

Mohammed Gulzar

The eighth defendant on charges of conspiracy to murder is also pegged as one of the ringleaders, according to The Guardian, which reported:

[Wright] described Ali, Sarwar and Mohammed Gulzar as the main men behind the plot.

The Sunday Express has more:

Mr Wright said Abdulla Ahmed Ali from Walthamstow, Assad Sarwar and Mohammed Gulzar were the main men behind the murderous plot.
...

Mr Wright told the court police had watched several members of the gang for many months.

He said: “From what had been observed in the days and months prior to the arrests it was realised that these men, together with others, were engaged in some sort of terrorist plot.”

The court heard how Ali and Gulzar were watched by police as they met frequently at a flat in Forest Road, Walthamstow, to make final preparations.

About that flat: David Byers reported in The Times:

The “bomb factory” allegedly used by the eight-strong terrorist gang to develop liquid explosives, with the intention of blowing up transatlantic airliners, was described in court [April 4].

The flat in Forest Road, Walthamstow, East London, was bought by Abdulla Ali, the self-declared leader of the gang, for £141,191.63 in cash on July 20, 2006, the prosecution said...

Targets

The Sunday Express account continues:

Police recovered a computer memory stick belonging to Ali which contained detailed information about flights and airport security, the jury was told.

“The memory stick contained details in respect of flight timetables, baggage information, security advice in respect of restricted items and other information about Heathrow airport,” said Mr Wright.

The jury was shown files on the memory stick giving details of flights from Heathrow to cities in North America including Boston, Denver, Chicago, Miami, New York and Montreal.

The information included the airline, terminal at Heathrow, departure times, arrival times, flight numbers, aircraft type and number of stops, the court heard.

The information on the memory stick focused only on one-way flights from Heathrow. These were all commercial airliners with passenger capacities of almost 300 people per plane.

“Collectively the flights were each of them non-stop transatlantic journeys to north American destinations,” said Mr Wright.

Of the flights on the memory stick, seven had been highlighted, the jury was told. They were on three airlines - Air Canada, United Airlines and American Airlines.

The Guardian and others have named the seven highlighted flights:

1415 United Airlines Flight 931 to San Francisco
1500 Air Canada Flight 849 to Toronto
1515 Air Canada Flight 865 to Montreal
1540 United Airlines Flight 959 to Chicago
1620 United Airlines Flight 925 to Washington
1635 American Airlines Flight 139 to New York
1650 American Airlines Flight 91 to Chicago

The Toronto and Montreal connections are new and have aroused some interest in the Canadian media.

The CBC reported:

John O'Connor, a former commander with Scotland Yard's anti-terrorism unit, told CBC News Thursday that it's not surprising that Canadian flights were among the targets.

"It might seem difficult for Canadians to understand, but when you're looking at Canada and America, one tends to on this side of the Atlantic combine them as one, and I'm sure that's what the terrorists do," he said from London.

"They see them as very close cousins, and they wouldn't discriminate them against one or the other…. As far as the insurgents are concerned, any Western country which is an ally of the United States is going to be seen as a legitimate target."

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thirty-third in a series

The Clues Of September

I have never taken a position on the branch of 9/11 research known as "TV Fakery", but I have always had some questions about what we saw on TV that day, in particular about the video of the "hijacked airplanes" slamming into the towers.

"September Clues" looks at the various bits of video evidence broadcast by the major networks on September 11, 2001 -- and the video records those networks now have in their archives -- and finds a state of affairs that can only be described in the words of Ricky Ricardo:

"Somebody got some 'splainin' to do!!"

Analysis of the FOX coverage forms a large part of "September Clues"; I didn't see any FOX on 9/11, so my questions pertain to other coverage. "September Clues" doesn't even raise the questions I've had. And I don't mean to imply that this "omission" discredits "September Clues" in any way; merely that the list of unanswered questions is even longer...

Here's the first ten minutes:

Part One: 9/11 News Media Coverage

To watch the whole video, in 10-minute segments, click here.

Tom Toles: Next Question!